Tranquility Game

http://www.tqworld.com

A nice 3d game which is designed to help you relax. It has a game browser which downloads games/levels into it.

The game is Tranquility, and it will take you on a sensual, meditative journey the likes of which you've never seen before. Start a new game, and you find yourself drifting in a three-dimensional space filled with thousands of tiny stars of varying shapes, sizes, and colors. Mesmerized by the sights and sounds, you float around, occasionally bouncing off objects. In fact, you can even learn how to make music yourself by bouncing off the objects the right way.

Most of the game's core feature set depends on a live Internet connection; levels come from the net, scores go to the net, etc. You can play some levels without a net connection, though.

The current clients for OS 9, OS X, and Windows (linux in planning as of Dec. 2002) are available through the download section at http://www.tqworld.com/ . You get training, free membership access to the daily demo level, and a few other things. The long-term play mode comes in when you purchase a membership, though.

If you're sensitive to spinning motion, be careful; this game's got a tendency to induce motion sickness. Lots of spinning and height changes and the like.

Movies of gameplay are available in QuickTime movies; it's helpful for trying to figure out what gameplay is like.

3.4MB: http://www.tqworld.com/movies/descend.mov 4.8MB: http://www.tqworld.com/movies/FlyThrough.mov

Screenshots are also available at http://www.tqworld.com/ -- but the movies are better than a thousand pictures at explaining it.

The demos do not do it justice. -- MichaelFinney

Isn't this eerily like that game that hypnotizes and brainwashes all the crew of StarTrekTheNextGeneration, bar Wesley because he's too dumb? ;-)

Just think of the spinners as funnels of the black hole variety, and you've got it in space instead of on a grid.

Warning: the constant spinning may make some folk feel violently ill.

Please note that in September 2003 a retail 'boxed' version of Tranquility will appear at CompUSA stores in the U.S. -- pricing, street date unknown -- containing a disk of the game, a free player account, and as-of-yet unknown extras. I'll report back when I have it in hand. :) -- BrianKerr?